But the biggest Olympics audience of the day came later in the evening, with the peaktime Olympics programme featuring a host of swimming finals and semi-finals, attracting a five-minute peak of 8.8 million viewers. BBC1 had 8.2 million of this, with 600,000 on BBC Olympics 1.

BBC1's coverage of Daley and his diving partner, Peter Waterfield, had a five-minute peak of 6.4 million viewers just before 4pm on Monday, with a further 600,000 on digital channel BBC Olympics 10.

BBC1's afternoon Olympics programme between 1.45pm and 4pm averaged 3.7 million viewers (36.9%), with an average of 4.8 million (35.6%) tuning in between 4pm and 6pm.

The men's gymnastics team's historic bronze win – it was a silver until the judges controversially elevated Japan from fourth to second – had a five-minute peak of 5.4 million viewers across BBC3, BBC HD and BBC Olympics 2 just after 7pm.

BBC3's afternoon Olympics coverage averaged 1.03 million (7.7%) between 2pm and 7pm, and 1.15 million (5.2%) between 7pm and 11pm.

Synchronised soap watching

With BBC1 devoted to wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics, EastEnders has switched to BBC2 for the duration of the games and debuted with 5.7 million viewers, a 23.2% share, in its new home between 8pm and 8.30pm on Monday night.

This was around 2 million viewers down on the audience for last week's instalment in the same slot, which had 7.6 million viewers, a 35.1% share.

The soap trailed behind BBC1's Olympics swimming coverage but predictably had the better of ITV1's Countrywise, which was watched by 2.6 million viewers (10.5%) also between 8pm and 8.30pm.

ITV1, which has seen its ratings take a dive up against the BBC's Olympics coverage, earned itself a place on the podium with two episodes of Coronation Street, watched by 7 million viewers (30.2%) and 6.7 million (26.7%) at 7.30pm and 8.30pm respectively.

Coronation Street's audience held up slightly better than EastEnders, down from 7.7 million and 8.1 million last Monday.

ITV1's 9pm offering, music documentary We Love The Monkees, had 2.3 million viewers, a 9.8% share.

Panorama, which has also switched from BBC1 to BBC2 for the Olympics, had 2.3 million viewers (9.3%) for its investigation, Disabled or Faking It?

Channel 4's current affairs show Dispatches, which last night looked at sickness benefit, was watched by 1.3 million viewers (5.3%) between 8pm and 8.30pm.

The network also threw a new series into the mix with Simply Italian, a cookery show featuring Michela Chiappa which began its four-part run with 1 million viewers, a 4.2% share, between 8.30pm and 9pm.

You better run, you better do what you can

An almost entirely Olympics-free zone, ITV2 did its bit for the London Games with Beat TV, a new Coca-Cola-funded, Olympic-themed entertainment show with Darren McMullen, Laura Whitmore and Dave Berry.

It made a slow start out of the blocks with 47,000 viewers between 6.30pm and 7pm.

All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC and some other channels including Sky1) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated

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